The battle for in-vehicle displays escalates
The development momentum of the new energy vehicle industry is strong, and the sales of new energy passenger cars in China will exceed ten million units by 2024. As an important interface for "human-vehicle interaction" in the smart cockpit, in-car displays are becoming the focus of competition among major car manufacturers and the next battleground for panel manufacturers.
01
Significant increase in demand for in-car displays
With the penetration of new energy and intelligent driving vehicles, the trend towards larger and multi-screen displays in vehicles is becoming increasingly evident. In addition to traditional central control and instrument displays, new products such as HUD (Head-Up Display), co-driver displays, rear entertainment screens, electronic rearview mirrors, and transparent A-pillars have been added, leading to a rapid increase in the number of in-car display installations.
In the field of new energy vehicles, in-car display panels are gradually evolving towards larger sizes, providing ample space for information display. The combination of instrument clusters with floating central control screens has become a mainstream element.
For example, the Xiaomi SU7 features a 7.1-inch instrument cluster paired with a 16.1-inch 3K resolution Mini LED backlight central control screen, the Zeekr 007 has a 13.02-inch instrument cluster paired with a 15.05-inch 2.5K OLED central control screen, and the Smart S7 has a 12.3-inch ICD paired with a 15.6-inch 2K resolution central control screen. In addition to the minimalist interior style, large central control screens that integrate more driving information and entertainment control functions also further enhance the user experience.
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Looking at the new models launched in the past two years, in-car displays are not only getting larger but also becoming more multi-screened. It seems to have become a mainstream trend to stuff larger and more screens into the vehicle. The Ideal L9, for instance, not only has a 15.7-inch OLED screen for both the central control and co-driver entertainment screens but also has a 15.7-inch "small TV" on the ceiling, and even incorporates an interactive screen on the steering wheel, making the entire cabin filled with the essence of "screens".As intelligent in-car displays become a core selling point, the demand for in-car displays is seeing a significant increase. Statistics from Sigmaintell Consulting show that in 2023, the global shipment of in-car display panels is expected to reach 210 million units, a year-on-year increase of about 5%, and the overall scale is expected to maintain a growth of 3%-5% over the next three years. With the development trend of car intelligence and visualization, as well as the rapid popularization of new energy vehicles, the global demand for in-car display screens is expected to reach 247 million units by 2028.
In the past few years, the continuous trend of large screens and multi-screen configurations in the automotive industry has benefited some leading manufacturers immensely.
For instance, as the only in-car display module and system operation platform under BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd., BOE Varex achieved a revenue of HKD 5.21 billion in the first half of 2023, a year-on-year increase of 8%; in contrast, its parent company BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd. saw a year-on-year decline of 12.48% in revenue during the same period.
Tianma Microelectronics ranks first globally in shipments for the in-car front-fitted market and the in-car instrument market. In the first three quarters of 2023, Tianma's in-car business revenue achieved a year-on-year increase of 10%, and in terms of shipments, LTPS technology has accelerated its penetration, with LTPS in-car product shipments increasing by nearly 40% year-on-year.
This forms a stark contrast to the home and consumer electronics display market, which has been in a sluggish state.
02
Fierce Competition and Generational Replacement
If we review the development history of mobile phone displays, we can see that mobile phones have evolved from monochrome screens to color screens and large screens, and then from OLED screens to flexible folding large screens. The development of in-car displays also needs to go through fierce technological competition and generational replacement.
Initially, traditional LCDs were the most widely used in the automotive field. Low-end liquid crystal screens (a-Si LCD), due to their low cost, firmly occupy the low-end in-car display market share, while high-end liquid crystal screens (LTPS LCD) divide the high-end in-car display share. In the in-car display panel market, due to cost and technological maturity, LCD is still the mainstream. According to data from market research company Omdia, LCD holds 97.2% of the in-car display panel market share, while OLED accounts for only 2.8% of the market share.However, due to the inherent structural and luminescent principles of LCDs that lead to various disadvantages in display effects, OLED has begun to shine in the automotive field. Automotive OLED screens possess advantages such as thinness, flexibility, and irregular shapes that liquid crystal screens do not have, which can bring greater added value to cars.
LGD started sending flexible OLED samples to automotive manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz in 2014. From 2016, Samsung began to tilt its research and development resources towards automotive OLED projects, promoting the gradual implementation of OLED automotive display applications.
At the same time, domestic companies like BOE, Visionox, and Tianma are also tirelessly advancing the construction and mass production of OLED factories, hoping to secure more orders in the consumer electronics market. At that time, automotive displays could not provide short-term benefits, so they were still in the early stages of research and development and sample production.
Since the decline of the smartphone market in 2017, the growth of the new energy vehicle market has driven the automotive display market to grow further, and OLED panel manufacturers have accelerated their market pace in high-end automotive display applications. In 2021, automotive manufacturers like Cadillac and Lexus began to try flexible OLED. In addition, Hyundai's IONIQ5 and Li's L9 have adopted Samsung's rigid OLED.
In 2023, Omdia has repeatedly raised its forecast for global automotive OLED panel shipments. It is expected that by 2027, the global market size for automotive OLED panels will reach $2.17 billion, more than four times the size of 2023.
The ambition of automotive displays does not stop there. Since OLED has not been able to solve the problem of screen burn-in after years of development, and the blue light lifespan of OLED is generally low, it has hindered the further development of OLED screens in the automotive field. Therefore, Mini LED and Micro LED are already on their way to entering the market.
From the perspective of automotive display technology, a pattern of coexistence of multiple technologies has emerged: OLED technology has become one of the hot topics in the automotive display field, providing more diversified solutions for automotive displays, and on the other hand, it is also conducive to better expanding the application fields of OLED technology. Mini LED backlighting is one of the upgrade solutions for automotive displays, which can be combined with the existing mainstream LCD mass production technology; although Micro LED has a high market attention, its maturity and commercialization require time, and it can be used in the future for automotive and other display fields.
03
The future of automotive displays leans towards Micro LED.Micro LED has not yet reached mass production, but it has long been hailed as the "next-generation display technology." This is due to the unique advantages of Micro LED technology. One advantage is its high transparency; under the same PPI (pixels per inch) conditions, the transmittance is greater than 70%. Since the μLED light-emitting chips are as small as micrometers, they are tens of times smaller than LCDs and OLEDs, allowing for a large space for transparent areas and achieving high transparency.
Another advantage is the borderless design. Micro-LED technology can theoretically achieve a borderless display, which is beneficial for tiled displays. This is because the LED size is extremely small, occupying a minimal pixel space, and there is no need to reserve a border area for encapsulation design. Furthermore, Micro-LED is composed of inorganic luminescent materials, which are not easily eroded by water and oxygen, making them more reliable and longer-lasting.
Due to these two major advantages, Micro-LED is ushering in the era of vehicle integration. In the future, automotive displays, transparent displays, and tiled displays are good breakthrough points for Micro-LED.
Currently, Micro LED pixel headlights are gradually being applied to high-end car models.
In December last year, NIO officially released its latest model, the ET9. The ET9 is equipped with a new intelligent high-definition projection headlight, using Micro LED units and high-precision imaging lenses from the film industry. It can be integrated with NIO's Aquila 2.0 vehicle sensing system to achieve enhanced brightness for low and high beams, ultra-wide angle coverage, large follow-up steering angle, and a longer illumination distance, while also enabling pixel-level precise light control.
Additionally, the 2023 Porsche production vehicle Cayenne has begun to feature Micro LED headlights, achieving "glare-free" high-beam lighting. At present, Tier1 suppliers equipped with Micro LED headlight technology also include HELLA and Marelli AL, among others.
Automotive Micro-LED headlights currently focus on tens of thousands of pixels and are advancing towards hundreds of thousands of pixels. Although the technical difficulty is not low, compared to the high-definition and ultra-high-definition requirements of display products, the difficulty of automotive Micro-LED headlights in terms of mass transfer and bonding processes has been significantly reduced.
Compared to Micro-LED headlights, the development of Micro-LED automotive display screens is more challenging. When discussing the difference between headlights and screens, a display technology expert from a major manufacturer's intelligent cockpit center said, "The two products are still quite different. When used as lighting lamps, the number of units used is relatively small and the volume is compact. However, if used for in-car displays, a single central control entertainment screen can be 12 inches, 13 inches, or even 15 inches, representing an exponential increase. The same yield rate applied to a larger screen results in very high costs for yield damage."
Many companies are already accelerating their deployment of automotive Micro-LED technology.Currently, Tianma's automotive electronics business for direct supply to vehicle manufacturers has officially shipped several projects in 2023, with a significant scale-up expected in 2024. The new energy vehicle business, a key focus, has also rapidly increased its market share among leading customers. The company has maintained a high total value of new opportunities secured, with LTPS project amounts accounting for nearly 70%, encompassing technologies such as OLED, Local Dimming, and business directions like automotive electronics and new energy, as well as cutting-edge products like panoramic head-up displays.
Furthermore, Tianma has made short-, medium-, and long-term strategic deployments in various aspects including advanced capacity, technological research and development, and business models: it has invested in the construction of a 8.6th generation line and a new display module production line; it has built a vehicle display research and development center and a Micro-LED full-process production line to strengthen the layout of key technologies; relying on its leading position in the vehicle display field, it will actively empower the development of automotive electronics and new energy vehicle businesses, creating a new growth engine for vehicle-related business.
During institutional research, BOE stated: "In the MR field, after years of accumulation, the company has provided display products using Fast LCD and Micro OLED technologies for multiple brand customers."
Qingyue Technology has achieved breakthroughs in technologies such as Micro OLED colorization, with a number of micro-display technology reserves. The company stated: "At present, the yield and capacity of the company's 8-inch silicon-based OLED micro-display production line are still in the early stages of mass production, requiring continuous optimization and improvement to gradually ramp up, and it will take a longer time to fully reach production capacity."
However, there is still a long way to go for Micro LED to be adopted in vehicles.
Recently, Osram (ams OSRAM) announced the unexpected cancellation of a significant Micro LED project, and the company has decided to re-evaluate its Micro LED development strategy. As Osram collaborated with Apple to introduce Micro LED into the Apple Watch Ultra 3, it is speculated that the cancellation is likely due to the termination of the Apple Watch partnership.
Currently, Apple has terminated the microLED project for the future smartwatch expected to be released in 2026. Hundreds of employees working at the company's secret factory in California have been laid off, and swift action has been taken.
Industry analysts believe that the main reasons for Osram's abandonment are low production capacity, high costs, and high risks.
Even when used on small screens like watches, Micro LED still has expensive costs and a significant amount of yield loss. To apply it to large screens in vehicles, further research and development and effort are needed within the industry.
The development momentum of the new energy vehicle industry is strong, and the sales of new energy passenger cars in China will exceed ten million units by 2024. As an important interface for "human-vehicle interaction" in the smart cockpit, in-car displays are becoming the focus of competition among major car manufacturers and the next battleground for panel manufacturers.
01
Significant increase in demand for in-car displays
With the penetration of new energy and intelligent driving vehicles, the trend towards larger and multi-screen displays in vehicles is becoming increasingly evident. In addition to traditional central control and instrument displays, new products such as HUD (Head-Up Display), co-driver displays, rear entertainment screens, electronic rearview mirrors, and transparent A-pillars have been added, leading to a rapid increase in the number of in-car display installations.
In the field of new energy vehicles, in-car display panels are gradually evolving towards larger sizes, providing ample space for information display. The combination of instrument clusters with floating central control screens has become a mainstream element.
For example, the Xiaomi SU7 features a 7.1-inch instrument cluster paired with a 16.1-inch 3K resolution Mini LED backlight central control screen, the Zeekr 007 has a 13.02-inch instrument cluster paired with a 15.05-inch 2.5K OLED central control screen, and the Smart S7 has a 12.3-inch ICD paired with a 15.6-inch 2K resolution central control screen. In addition to the minimalist interior style, large central control screens that integrate more driving information and entertainment control functions also further enhance the user experience.
Advertisement
Looking at the new models launched in the past two years, in-car displays are not only getting larger but also becoming more multi-screened. It seems to have become a mainstream trend to stuff larger and more screens into the vehicle. The Ideal L9, for instance, not only has a 15.7-inch OLED screen for both the central control and co-driver entertainment screens but also has a 15.7-inch "small TV" on the ceiling, and even incorporates an interactive screen on the steering wheel, making the entire cabin filled with the essence of "screens".As intelligent in-car displays become a core selling point, the demand for in-car displays is seeing a significant increase. Statistics from Sigmaintell Consulting show that in 2023, the global shipment of in-car display panels is expected to reach 210 million units, a year-on-year increase of about 5%, and the overall scale is expected to maintain a growth of 3%-5% over the next three years. With the development trend of car intelligence and visualization, as well as the rapid popularization of new energy vehicles, the global demand for in-car display screens is expected to reach 247 million units by 2028.
In the past few years, the continuous trend of large screens and multi-screen configurations in the automotive industry has benefited some leading manufacturers immensely.
For instance, as the only in-car display module and system operation platform under BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd., BOE Varex achieved a revenue of HKD 5.21 billion in the first half of 2023, a year-on-year increase of 8%; in contrast, its parent company BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd. saw a year-on-year decline of 12.48% in revenue during the same period.
Tianma Microelectronics ranks first globally in shipments for the in-car front-fitted market and the in-car instrument market. In the first three quarters of 2023, Tianma's in-car business revenue achieved a year-on-year increase of 10%, and in terms of shipments, LTPS technology has accelerated its penetration, with LTPS in-car product shipments increasing by nearly 40% year-on-year.
This forms a stark contrast to the home and consumer electronics display market, which has been in a sluggish state.
02
Fierce Competition and Generational Replacement
If we review the development history of mobile phone displays, we can see that mobile phones have evolved from monochrome screens to color screens and large screens, and then from OLED screens to flexible folding large screens. The development of in-car displays also needs to go through fierce technological competition and generational replacement.
Initially, traditional LCDs were the most widely used in the automotive field. Low-end liquid crystal screens (a-Si LCD), due to their low cost, firmly occupy the low-end in-car display market share, while high-end liquid crystal screens (LTPS LCD) divide the high-end in-car display share. In the in-car display panel market, due to cost and technological maturity, LCD is still the mainstream. According to data from market research company Omdia, LCD holds 97.2% of the in-car display panel market share, while OLED accounts for only 2.8% of the market share.However, due to the inherent structural and luminescent principles of LCDs that lead to various disadvantages in display effects, OLED has begun to shine in the automotive field. Automotive OLED screens possess advantages such as thinness, flexibility, and irregular shapes that liquid crystal screens do not have, which can bring greater added value to cars.
LGD started sending flexible OLED samples to automotive manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz in 2014. From 2016, Samsung began to tilt its research and development resources towards automotive OLED projects, promoting the gradual implementation of OLED automotive display applications.
At the same time, domestic companies like BOE, Visionox, and Tianma are also tirelessly advancing the construction and mass production of OLED factories, hoping to secure more orders in the consumer electronics market. At that time, automotive displays could not provide short-term benefits, so they were still in the early stages of research and development and sample production.
Since the decline of the smartphone market in 2017, the growth of the new energy vehicle market has driven the automotive display market to grow further, and OLED panel manufacturers have accelerated their market pace in high-end automotive display applications. In 2021, automotive manufacturers like Cadillac and Lexus began to try flexible OLED. In addition, Hyundai's IONIQ5 and Li's L9 have adopted Samsung's rigid OLED.
In 2023, Omdia has repeatedly raised its forecast for global automotive OLED panel shipments. It is expected that by 2027, the global market size for automotive OLED panels will reach $2.17 billion, more than four times the size of 2023.
The ambition of automotive displays does not stop there. Since OLED has not been able to solve the problem of screen burn-in after years of development, and the blue light lifespan of OLED is generally low, it has hindered the further development of OLED screens in the automotive field. Therefore, Mini LED and Micro LED are already on their way to entering the market.
From the perspective of automotive display technology, a pattern of coexistence of multiple technologies has emerged: OLED technology has become one of the hot topics in the automotive display field, providing more diversified solutions for automotive displays, and on the other hand, it is also conducive to better expanding the application fields of OLED technology. Mini LED backlighting is one of the upgrade solutions for automotive displays, which can be combined with the existing mainstream LCD mass production technology; although Micro LED has a high market attention, its maturity and commercialization require time, and it can be used in the future for automotive and other display fields.
03
The future of automotive displays leans towards Micro LED.Micro LED has not yet reached mass production, but it has long been hailed as the "next-generation display technology." This is due to the unique advantages of Micro LED technology. One advantage is its high transparency; under the same PPI (pixels per inch) conditions, the transmittance is greater than 70%. Since the μLED light-emitting chips are as small as micrometers, they are tens of times smaller than LCDs and OLEDs, allowing for a large space for transparent areas and achieving high transparency.
Another advantage is the borderless design. Micro-LED technology can theoretically achieve a borderless display, which is beneficial for tiled displays. This is because the LED size is extremely small, occupying a minimal pixel space, and there is no need to reserve a border area for encapsulation design. Furthermore, Micro-LED is composed of inorganic luminescent materials, which are not easily eroded by water and oxygen, making them more reliable and longer-lasting.
Due to these two major advantages, Micro-LED is ushering in the era of vehicle integration. In the future, automotive displays, transparent displays, and tiled displays are good breakthrough points for Micro-LED.
Currently, Micro LED pixel headlights are gradually being applied to high-end car models.
In December last year, NIO officially released its latest model, the ET9. The ET9 is equipped with a new intelligent high-definition projection headlight, using Micro LED units and high-precision imaging lenses from the film industry. It can be integrated with NIO's Aquila 2.0 vehicle sensing system to achieve enhanced brightness for low and high beams, ultra-wide angle coverage, large follow-up steering angle, and a longer illumination distance, while also enabling pixel-level precise light control.
Additionally, the 2023 Porsche production vehicle Cayenne has begun to feature Micro LED headlights, achieving "glare-free" high-beam lighting. At present, Tier1 suppliers equipped with Micro LED headlight technology also include HELLA and Marelli AL, among others.
Automotive Micro-LED headlights currently focus on tens of thousands of pixels and are advancing towards hundreds of thousands of pixels. Although the technical difficulty is not low, compared to the high-definition and ultra-high-definition requirements of display products, the difficulty of automotive Micro-LED headlights in terms of mass transfer and bonding processes has been significantly reduced.
Compared to Micro-LED headlights, the development of Micro-LED automotive display screens is more challenging. When discussing the difference between headlights and screens, a display technology expert from a major manufacturer's intelligent cockpit center said, "The two products are still quite different. When used as lighting lamps, the number of units used is relatively small and the volume is compact. However, if used for in-car displays, a single central control entertainment screen can be 12 inches, 13 inches, or even 15 inches, representing an exponential increase. The same yield rate applied to a larger screen results in very high costs for yield damage."
Many companies are already accelerating their deployment of automotive Micro-LED technology.Currently, Tianma's automotive electronics business for direct supply to vehicle manufacturers has officially shipped several projects in 2023, with a significant scale-up expected in 2024. The new energy vehicle business, a key focus, has also rapidly increased its market share among leading customers. The company has maintained a high total value of new opportunities secured, with LTPS project amounts accounting for nearly 70%, encompassing technologies such as OLED, Local Dimming, and business directions like automotive electronics and new energy, as well as cutting-edge products like panoramic head-up displays.
Furthermore, Tianma has made short-, medium-, and long-term strategic deployments in various aspects including advanced capacity, technological research and development, and business models: it has invested in the construction of a 8.6th generation line and a new display module production line; it has built a vehicle display research and development center and a Micro-LED full-process production line to strengthen the layout of key technologies; relying on its leading position in the vehicle display field, it will actively empower the development of automotive electronics and new energy vehicle businesses, creating a new growth engine for vehicle-related business.
During institutional research, BOE stated: "In the MR field, after years of accumulation, the company has provided display products using Fast LCD and Micro OLED technologies for multiple brand customers."
Qingyue Technology has achieved breakthroughs in technologies such as Micro OLED colorization, with a number of micro-display technology reserves. The company stated: "At present, the yield and capacity of the company's 8-inch silicon-based OLED micro-display production line are still in the early stages of mass production, requiring continuous optimization and improvement to gradually ramp up, and it will take a longer time to fully reach production capacity."
However, there is still a long way to go for Micro LED to be adopted in vehicles.
Recently, Osram (ams OSRAM) announced the unexpected cancellation of a significant Micro LED project, and the company has decided to re-evaluate its Micro LED development strategy. As Osram collaborated with Apple to introduce Micro LED into the Apple Watch Ultra 3, it is speculated that the cancellation is likely due to the termination of the Apple Watch partnership.
Currently, Apple has terminated the microLED project for the future smartwatch expected to be released in 2026. Hundreds of employees working at the company's secret factory in California have been laid off, and swift action has been taken.
Industry analysts believe that the main reasons for Osram's abandonment are low production capacity, high costs, and high risks.
Even when used on small screens like watches, Micro LED still has expensive costs and a significant amount of yield loss. To apply it to large screens in vehicles, further research and development and effort are needed within the industry.